Henan’s Luoyang achieves new progress, results in building moderately prosperous society in all respects (5)

A renowned city of history and culture, Luoyang in central China’s Henan province, has made new progress and results in building a moderately prosperous society in all aspects.

Luoyang has improved urban amenities, making it an outstanding place to live in and attracting numerous residents with a complex of public services in the park. Transformed from a riverside land, the opening of the Xingluo Lake Park has improved the environment for urban living.

A woman surnamed Li is one of them. “I visit the beautiful park almost every day with my two children,” Li said, adding that she also borrows free children’s storybooks from the complex for her kids.

“We left from Hubei province and began to live in Luoyang in 2008, finding that there are so many children’s playgrounds. It’s more convenient for my kids to play since the Xingluo Lake Park is near my home,” Li noted.

Liu Changsuo is a music lover. After retiring, he volunteered to offer vocal training and instrument lessons to middle-aged and elderly people in the complex. “For one year since the launch of the program, 500 residents have already taken our courses on traditional Chinese instruments such as the erhu, guzheng, and Matouqin. They are united by the same interest in music and can enjoy the rest of their lives here,” Liu said.

Luoyang has built a large number of public service complexes featuring facilities such as libraries, volunteer service centers, convenience stores, public restrooms and hot water supplies.

Similarly, the city has also built a civil service center featuring comprehensive government services, along with other services such as real estate registration, hospitals, and public utilities including water, electricity and gas, as well as bank settlements.

With 69 entities, the center offers administrative approval and services on 1,200 items at 262 service counters, making it easier for people to access government services.

Luoyang has also renovated old urban residential communities while protecting historical deposits.

One of the examples is the Second Community of the Chongqinglu neighborhood in the city’s Jianxi district featuring residential buildings with Soviet façades. According to Li Yajun, Party head of the community, its renovation began two years ago, adding an access control system and charging piles, while addressing issues such as irregular parking and garbage dumps.

As a key national cultural heritage site, after the renovation the community features modern facilities while continuing to protect Soviet-style buildings, Li Yajun added.

The community is also equipped with an elderly care service center. Since its operation in March 2019, the center has offered breakfast for just 2 yuan (about $0.30) with a 20 percent discount for lunch and dinner for seniors in the community, shared Xie Xingli, head of the center, explaining that now over 100 seniors have regular meals at the center every day, with over 1,000 seniors enjoy services offered.

Seniors can also enjoy recreational activities free of charge at the center’s activity room, library, chess and poker room.

Serving as the capital over the span of several dynasties in Chinese history, the ancient city is striving to turn itself into a city of museums in order to pass on its rich historical culture. Home to 82 museums, including 79 that are open to the public for free, the number of museums will reach 100 by the end of this year.

At the same time, Luoyang has also achieved satisfactory results in poverty alleviation, despite the fact that it once had 728 poor villages, five national-level poverty-stricken counties and one provincial poor county.

Through concerted efforts, the city has lifted 474,000 registered poor people out of poverty, a reduction of 95 percent, with the poverty headcount ratio dropping to 0.5 percent at the end of 2019 from 9.1 percent at the end of 2013. All six impoverished counties have lifted 719 poor villages out of poverty.

Such substantial progress can be attributed partially to a smart poverty alleviation information system based on village-to-village and household-to-household identification across the city that enables local governments at different levels to collect information on the distribution of the impoverished population, causes of impoverishment, as well as their demands for poverty reduction and current status. With accurate data, the system enables precision in poverty reduction.

Within one week after the launch of the smart poverty alleviation system, Luoyang kept a record of the progress of poverty alleviation in 2,658 administrative villages in 142 towns, as well as information of 130,000 registered poverty-stricken households.

Based on big data technology, the system solves problems such as difficulty in data sharing among different departments, primary-level governance, outdated survey methods, and excessive burden on primary-level officials, according to Ding Xuefeng, chief economist of the poverty alleviation and development office in Luoyang.

Sanhe village of Huangzhuang Township in Songxian County is a leading example. Identifying as an impoverished villager in 2014 due to a physical disability in his right leg, with the help of officials in the village, Zhang Songxian became a beekeeper.

Developing his own honey brand, Zhang has also sold honey across the country through online channels. During a peak period of the business, he could sell up to 1,000 kilograms of honey in one month. Last year, he earned more than 100,000 yuan (over $14,000) from the business. Shaking off poverty through bee breeding, Zhang was allocated a new apartment thanks to the city’s poverty-relief relocation program.